Re: BIOS & CMOS

[Carroll Slemaker <cslemaker1@xxxxxxxx>]

There has been a lot of well-intentioned but off-the-mark info posted
here on this subject.

I F   the problem is due to loss of the info stored in the CMOS, and
from the symptoms you described this seems to be so, all the reloading
in the world of the OS and the BIOS will do no good.  Also, restoring
the CMOS to the manufacturer's defaults, although a good first thing to
try, will often do no good either.

To prepare for such an info loss (BEFORE the loss, unfortunately), do
two things:

(1) Run MSD (Microsoft Diagnostics) or any equivalent program and print
out all the info given on all the pages.  (There may be two different
versions of the diagnostics - one to run from DOS [true DOS, not a
Windows DOS prompt], and one for Windows.  Run BOTH, because each may
yield slightly different info - some Windows settings can override some
DOS settings.)

(2) Run your system's Setup routine (accessible at boot time by an
incantation which differes from one BIOS to another) and print out all
info which it displays.  This is the real basic, purely hardware info
which is stored in the so-called CMOS chip and which MUST be available
if the system is to start properly.

Note that both the Setup and MSD info will differ from the defaults if
you have added or changed hardware or if changes have been made
specifically to support certain software (communications programs most
often).

Carroll Slemaker